More than a million people signed up for early access to Robinhood just five days after announcing they would offer commission-free trading.
Last week, it was reported that the Robinhood trading application, which has a user base of three million customers who can trade shares via their smartphones for free, jumped into the world of cryptocurrencies. Starting in February, investors will have the opportunity to trade 24/7 on its application at no additional cost. Users will have 16 different digital currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum Classic, zcash, Monero, Dash, Stellar, Qtum, OmiseGo, NEO, Lisk, and Dogecoin.
However, while the service will initially only be available in five states: California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana and New Hampshire, this has not stemmed the wave of interest.
Since the announcement, the number of people who have registered for early access to the platform has jumped from hundreds of thousands to more than one million people.
In spite of the fall of the market and the recent coincheck piracy the interest in the crypto-currencies remains. Bitcoin saw its price rise last year from $ 1,000 in January to nearly $ 20,000 at the end of 2017 due to increased investor demand. However, the beginning of 2018 turned out to be a difficult time for cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin losing half of its value.
Yet, in an interview with Business Insider, Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood, said:
Crypto-currencies will change the world and we want to help drive that.
Robinhood is expected to gradually roll out the option in all five states with the intention of making it available to customers by the middle of the year. This, however, will not be easy. Coinbase, one of the largest Cryptocurrency Exchanges, suffered from slow trading due to rising demand. In addition, Coinbase experienced a sharp increase in customer complaints last year.
According to Bart Stephens, co-founder of Blockchain Capital, "what Robinhood will find quickly is that they will have the same suffering as Coinbase."
However, with one millennia out of three preferring Bitcoin to equities, and Robinhood claiming that 78% of its users fall into the 18- to 35-year-old category, Vlad Tenev, co-founder of Robinhood, seems confident of being able to meet the demand of customers.